Our telecom systems currently run on VMware, but we want to move away from it before the next renewal. We've investigated migrating Cisco Unified Communications Manager to Nutanix AHV, but we're running into support and compatibility concerns. For those already using Nutanix, are you setting aside a small cluster and running ESXi solely for Call Manager, or using another supported option? Running a separate VMware environment is something we'd rather avoid, and moving Call Manager to Cisco's cloud appears prohibitively expensive. What approach are you using?
5 Answers
One concern is that Cisco may limit full support to specific Cisco hardware configurations running Nutanix, rather than supporting every standard AHV deployment. That could make the officially supported route much more expensive, so I’d get written confirmation from Cisco and Nutanix before designing around it.
Hyper-V isn’t a supported virtualization platform for Cisco UCM. The practical supported choices are VMware, Nutanix where specifically certified, or Cisco’s own hypervisor option. We tried converting a system with backup software, but the boot configuration needed manual repair and the result was outside vendor support, so we abandoned that path.
Nutanix and Cisco have announced expanded UCM support for AHV, but the exact support matrix and availability still matter. We’re waiting for the relevant release and certification details before moving our on-premises cluster. We’re currently on Nutanix and plan to migrate CUCM after upgrading from version 14 to 15.
Cisco’s own NFVIS for UC is another possibility. It’s KVM-based and reportedly costs substantially less than a comparable vSphere license, so it may avoid maintaining a separate ESXi cluster. It’s worth checking the current hardware, licensing, and support requirements before treating it as a drop-in replacement.
If the organization can replace the phone system, moving away from CUCM may be the cleanest long-term answer. A different platform can require far less maintenance, although CUCM’s feature set and integrations can make replacement difficult if you rely on its more advanced capabilities.
That’s tempting, but replacing CUCM would require checking a lot of existing features and integrations, so virtualization is probably the more realistic short-term solution.